Hey everyone. Not even ComicFury is immune to updating our privacy policies and terms of service, like swaths of other websites recently have. So everyone has to click a checkbox, and then a button, you know the deal. Sorry.

The initial cause is a new EU law, which requires you to be more explicit in specifying what you do with personal data of your EU users (even if the site itself is not hosted in the EU), and IPs count as personal data under this law. It's worth looking at our privacy policy, it's quite detailed now about what exactly your data gets used for (but you were going to read it anyway, right? I mean, how else would you know what you're agreeing to... right???)

Ah, I wondered if this might happen. I was just about to make a forum post about how I couldn't get on the main page, because the terms of service thing keps coming back each time I clicked, though I'd already said I accept... then the same thing happened when I tried to press the post button... buuuut It seemes to be working now XD

Edit: I mean the thing kept coming back after I'd checked the box and agreed a bunch of times.

You SAY that, but a bunch of the privacy policy emails I've gotten say something along the lines of "you implicitly agree to our updated terms by continuing to use our service". No explicit checkbox required for them.

Sooooo... if I had to guess, they're the ones not following the law correctly (given that implicitly agreeing to things sounds shadier). So, uh, that's not great.

They don't have to do it if they already got you to agree to terms similar enough to the new ones, with a checkbox. We used not to have a checkbox (just a button and a text that said "by clicking this button you agree...", which is not enough under this law), that's why we need the explicit notices.

Obviously I'm not a lawyer, so I can only repeat what my research cropped up in preparing for all this. Don't be taking this as legal advice etc.

Terms of Service:9. Site Terms of Use Modifications
ComicFury may revise these terms of use for its web site at any time, but will make an effort to inform it's users when doing so. By using this web site you agree to the current version of these Terms and Conditions of Use

do legalicians make a big deal out of the occasional grammar/spelling gaffe because if so

I'm supposed to be born in 13 years. But when I became old enough to get my own time machine, I travelled back to 2018 for... uh... reasons. Probably to stop the gator invasion that caused my apocalyptic future. (and yes, I can confirm old Nama uses his banhammer when telling kids to get off his lawn)

Anyway, I don't like ticking boxes, but it can be fun sometimes. Tick tick tick tick tick tick

This is pretty much the same to the update the SABRE (Society For All British Road Enthusiasts) forums introduced about a week ago. I assume that like it, this notification is database based and appears only the first time (unless the privacy policy is changed) so it won't be saved in your cookies only to come back after a month? Doesn't the GDPR effectively combine the UK's Data Protection Act with the EU's Cookie Directive?

My browser has the "I Don't Care About Cookies" plugin which has said that it will remove many of these GDPR privacy notices in its next update. It's not illegal, since you're effectively just waiving consent and it's third party so a site can't be taken to blame, although I doubt it will work here because this is more of a redirect instead a popup.

Also, would this redirect occur for any anonymous user that visits the site for the first time, or only for registered users/on registration? If the former, it may put people off coming here. UPDATE: I tried from a college computer that I haven't used before, and it loads normally, so I assume this is only for users. Likewise it logged me on normally, so it must be database (server) instead of cookie (client) based.

Oh, and you were about 3-4 hours late in implementing the change after the deadline (in the Eastern half of the EU). Could Junker sue you?

RJDG14:Also, would this redirect occur for any anonymous user that visits the site for the first time, or only for registered users/on registration?

It's showing only for logged-in user that haven't yet agreed to the new Terms. Anonymous viewing are not affected, whether the main site, forum, or each comic sites.

P.S. My browsers, apart from disabling JavaScript by default, are configured to discard all cookies (and offline storage contents) at the end of session.

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And @Kyo, I didn't see the Decline button on the form. As unlikely as it is (1), what are proper steps to proceed when a user declined the new Term of Service?

Shouldn't the Decline choice be provided, and link to the Disable Account page?

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(1) I have read the full Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, most terms are quite favorable. Only real concern (2) I have there is Terms of Service section 2: it has not taken into account of authors that publish comic on Comic Fury together with extended licenses attached to them (Creative Commons license family, Free Art License, etc).

The exception provided at the end of section 2a only covers the works that user owns copyright (i.e. is an author/rightsholder); not the cases where users are licensed or are otherwise allowed to download according to the author. This may imply that user cannot save comic pages published on Comic Fury for adaptation or reuse, even when the author allows or encourages them to.

Note A: This concern is unrelated to a use of automated tools to save pages, which is a separate issue.
Note B: This concern is actually originated from my read of previous version of Terms of Service; the relevant clauses in this updated version are (as far as I remember) still the same in this aspect.

(2) The other rather-trivial concern is how "Comic Fury" are written in the Terms of Service as a camelcase "ComicFury", which are not consistent with what written on the title bar and everywhere else on the site.

As often as I write camelcase "ComicFury" on the forum myself, as a user; this kind of inconsistency is IMO, not good for a legal document like Terms of Service.

If you live in Europe (or elsewhere now thanks to the GDPR) you may wish to install the I Don't Care About Cookies plugin if these popups annoy you (like I said earlier, it won't make any difference on a lot of forums that do not contain a cookie popup and simply ask you to accept when registering).

I assume this is the GDPR PHPbb (which I believe the forums are based on) plugin that a couple of other forums I use have installed? It acts in the same manner, although the SABRE version did have an option to decline the terms, which I don't want to try because to my knowledge it has no Disable Account option unlike here. I guess it would disable it and then you'd need to email the admins there if you made a mistake, who could reactivate it.

Merged Doublepost:

xwindows:(1) I have read the full Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, most terms are quite favorable. Only real concern (2) I have there is Terms of Service section 2: it has not taken into account of authors that publish comic on Comic Fury together with extended licenses attached to them (Creative Commons license family, Free Art License, etc).

The exception provided at the end of section 2a only covers the works that user owns copyright (i.e. is an author/rightsholder); not the cases where users are licensed or are otherwise allowed to download according to the author. This may imply that user cannot save comic pages published on Comic Fury for adaptation or reuse, even when the author allows or encourages them to.

I'd assume the "all rights reserved" licence you pointed out is the default license which applies to the main site assets and to comics unless where otherwise stated. I'm sure this would still allow users to release their work under an open license for others to reproduce if they wish to do so. I think this section has been this way since at least 2014 when I joined. In general, terms of service act as a guideline and certain sections can be legally enforceable, but there is also generally a level of lenience in areas.

It also says that you retain all ownership over your contents apart from allowing ComicFury to host it and thus you can license it as you wish.

I'd imagine that "Comic Fury" is how the site is officially registered with its host, but in practice it's known as ComicFury.